In A Distant Place
by Blue Ticket
Summary: Craw/Schu centric with a slight dash of Nagi. Schuldich is quite insane and miserable. Crawford does what is necessary to keep him alive. I may continue it if encouraged to, but this story could be a nice one-shot as well.


I like Crawford's mind. Love it, even.  
  
It's powerful. Makes all the other voices go away. As though their weak, simple minds could never reach the depth or complexity of Crawford's.  
  
It's nearly silent. Nearly fucking silent. I embrace it when he allows me to. Never have I been able to experience such a mind.   
  
Probably because the fucking bastard has forgotten how to feel. Emotions are the loudest. Emotions are screams. Crawford has rather few of those, and they are subtle and controlled. Closer to growls or sighs than screams. Rather, his mind is a low, unintelligible murmur. A pattern of logical assumptions, musings and conclusions. But I like that mind when he's mentally philosophizing. The sort of shit Voltaire and Horatio would talk about. At those times, his mind is a soft hum ... or a song he's quietly singing to himself.  
  
His favorite topics are the order of the world, predestination and evolution. Amazingly enough, they all have something to do with that blessed future he's constantly planning.  
  
And when Crawford plans the future ... well, that's a different experience all together.  
  
He was sitting at his desk, reading coded messages from Este. He always sits there. Fucking type-type-typing or writing or making phone calls or planning. I lay down here. On the couch I had one day suddenly moved into his office. Crawford didn't like that. My couch and I were invaders in his little perfectly arranged room. My couch was fucking orange in his office of grays, blues and whites.  
  
I reached toward my blazer pocket, about to pull out my pack of cigarettes.  
  
"Don't." His sharp voice slicing through that pleasant silence.  
  
"Fuck you, Crawford." And I let my hand fall onto my chest. No smoking in the house. Especially not Crawford's office.  
  
The silence resurrected itself. But I was uncomfortable with it now. So, I talked.  
  
"I can't sleep at night."  
  
"Sleep now." He responded instantly, evenly. As though he had anticipated the comment.  
  
I could, sleep there. Near him. Losing myself within the monotonous sound of shifting papers, moving pencils or taps on the keyboard. Losing myself within the soft whisper of his mind.  
  
"I want some fucking drugs."   
  
He didn't respond verbally, but a portion of his mind seemed to say 'very well'.  
  
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I got my drugs. Pills that were legal if they were prescribed, but we can't get medication like that without Este knowing. And Este didn't need to know Crawford was using a particularly fucked up Telepath.  
  
I cursed him mentally. Asked him why he was too fucking ashamed of me to ask our employers for the shit. His excuse was they didn't quite understand how powerful I was. They'd be asking questions and reassessing my value if they knew my abilities were so strong that it fucked up my head.  
  
Bullshit.  
  
He didn't want them thinking Schwarz was weak.  
  
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Crawford once compared me with a dehydrated worm. A dehydrated fucking worm. He was just flipping through random thoughts in his mind and somehow that fucking comparison came up.  
  
He thinks I'm some sort of insect. Fucking lying on my belly, waiting to die.  
  
Where the flying-shit did that come from? A dehydrated worm?  
  
I told him to fuck off and die. Then went to his bedroom and had a smoke, letting the ashes fall on his clean carpet and furniture, and left the bud in the dark silk sheets of his bed.  
  
And I knocked over his table lamp when I left the room.  
  
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He made me clean the broken fucking table lamp. The bastard. He grabbed my damn wrist, THAT wrist, and twisted it until I yelped before he tugged me into his bedroom and forced me to clean like some God damn maid.  
  
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Nagi's thinking about Crawford again. God damn teenage hormones.  
  
/Crawford's asexual. I checked./   
  
(Go away, Schuldich.) Nagi was in his bedroom. I was watching some stupid Japanese soap-opera in the living room. I wanted to watch Crawford work at his desk again. But as punishment for breaking his fucking lamp he had started locking me out of his office. I missed my orange couch. I missed his quiet mind. That God damn fucker. It's been a whole God damn week.  
  
/I can't fucking go away. I'm a damn black-hole for thoughts and you were sucked in. So you fucking go away. And Crawford doesn't think about you like that. He thinks about ways he can use you. He thinks you're a curse and a blessing. But he doesn't fucking think about how nice it would be to fall in-fucking-love with you and screw you on his desk till you fucking scr--/  
  
(Shut up. I don't expect anything from Crawford. That's why I'm content with my position in Schwarz. I understand our leader and what he is willing to offer to us--)  
  
/Full of horse-shit./  
  
(--You, on the other hand, are deluded enough--)  
  
I broke off the link. But Nagi's thoughts returned to the wonders of being fucked by a loving Crawford. Ha, and I'm the deluded one. At least I don't indulge in such stupid fantasies.  
  
My fantasies were fucking better. Crawford would be sprawled out on his desk, telling me he fucking needs my dick fucking his tight ass.  
  
Or I was fucking raping him until he gripped onto me and cried out in pleasure.  
  
And my thoughts were far more likely. There was no romance shit in my fantasies. I understand him that much. More than that stupid telekinetic. He wasn't the fucking mind-reader and Crawford doesn't do romance shit.   
  
Just wish he didn't think I was a fucking dehydrated worm.  
  
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/Ohshitfuckcuntcuntshit./  
  
It hurt. It hurt so bad. I actually rolled out of bed and my elbow and hip nailed the fucking floor. The world was screaming again. A storm of wretched emotions was swelling. Something, somewhere was creating a lot of fucking screams and it fucking hurt. I stood upward and was fucking whimpering.   
  
Pills, pill, pills. I took some pills. The pills weren't working. Why weren't the pills working? Maybe some more will help. Some more did not help. Jesus-bloody-christ-on-a-fucking-stick.  
  
I wanted to resort to plan B: The razors. The same damn wrist that Crawford had grabbed when he was PMSing over that fucking lamp. Don't think the bastard realized or cared that's the wrist I played flesh-filet with.  
  
But Crawford caught me doing that before. The bastard claimed he had known for a while but didn't do shit about it cause it never got out of hand. Just tiny little nicks. Tiny little marks. Tiny little lines of blood. But one night Crawford stopped me and said I was getting too damn comfortable with it. What the fuck did he know or care?  
  
Oh wait. Gotta be able to fucking function for Schwarz. Gotta be able to help Crawford with those God damn ambitions of his. He wanted to change the world. I didn't give an ounce of piss about it. Shit shit shit. The voices were hurting so bad.  
  
Plan C. Go to fucking Plan C. Fucking Plan C was fucking Plan Crawford. I stumbled toward his office. Was he up working? I assumed he was. What the fuck time was it? Crawford better be in his fucking office or I'm going to fall over and vomit all that healthy shit he made me eat yesterday before I'd be able to reach his goddamn bedroom.  
  
I grabbed for the doorknob. It refused to twist. It was fucking locked.  
  
/LetMeIn.LetMeIn.LetMeIn.LetMeIn.LetMeIn.LetMeIn.LetMeIn./  
  
(Schuldich ... ?)  
  
I was panting and sweating and fucking tearing cause I teared when the mental shit hurt this bad.  
  
/They're screaming, Bastard. Said I couldn't cut so I'm not cutting I stopped cutting cause you said not to and you're fucking Brad Crawford and I gave my life to you when I joined Schwarz cause you said you were going to fucking own my life when I made the damn deal so come on you God damn devil-who-owns-my-fucking-soul better get the fuck out here and--/  
  
My grip on the doorknob was so God damn tight that when Crawford opened the God damn door he swung me open with it. I collapsed heavily on my knees and it kind of hurt but nothing compared to what my head was going through. I fucking reached for him ... the piece of his body which happened to be closest, his leg. I would have grabbed his God damn leg and cried like a child if he hadn't reached downward and tug me upward none-too- gently. He didn't need to be gentle at times like these.  
  
There were fucking arms around me now, supporting me. My hands were clenching onto the fabric of his navy-blue button-down shirt that made him my sexy prince fucking charming bastard and we were going to go ride back to his kingdom riding a white fucking horse when I was more concerned with riding the fucking prince and he was whispering something in my ear that could not be heard over the fucking screams.  
  
/LetMeIn! Mein Gott, let me the fuck in!/ I screamed mentally and the oracle finally took the fricking hint and opened his mind to me.  
  
There was a dash if pain on the edges of his mind. I had screamed too loudly. I murmured mental apologies after calling him a bastard. He showed me the dream he had last night. It would keep me preoccupied ... keep me from snooping around inside his mind until the voices finally stopped screaming.  
  
In a distant place, Crawford was holding me out of pity.  
  
Here, he was sharing his mind out of pity.  
  
I fucking hate this man. I sent him a mental picture of a dehydrated worm, baking on concrete under the glaring sun.  
  
In a distant place, Crawford sighed.  
  
Here, he showed me what his precognitive powers combined with his subconscious mind produced as he slept.  
  
Never really knew Crawford had such dreams until he shared them during moments where I couldn't hold on to my sanity. Always figured him as the sort of asshole who just slept peacefully for nine hours straight. But no ... Crawford had dreams. He considered them puzzles. He spent quite a bit of time trying to analyze him.  
  
/I had a fucking dream too. It involved you, dildos and whipped cream./  
  
In a distant place, Crawford sighed again.  
  
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--I'm not that great at fanfiction writing. All of you will leave me reviews and tell me how I might improve, yes? -.-;; 


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